“The indictment [of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev] suggests the Internet played an important role in the suspects’ radicalization”–AP, Wisconsin State Journal (28 June 2013)

We knew that it was coming. When a pressure-cooker bomb is described as “a weapon of mass destruction”, can anyone doubt that the government has gone on a binge with false information to manipulate the public? And the use of high-tech surveillance techniques appears to be in its infancy, where the national security state is going to protect its interests.

No one who knows how to do research on the Internet has any excuse to be taken in, which is why they are now going to pass a new “Cyber Security” version of the Patriot Act. They have to do something lest their control of the mass media no longer function as a form of mind-control by manipulating public information. The total control of information about threats to the national security state has become the foremost objective of the NSA. If they can ban websites, they can burn books, control what you watch on television and other aspects of your life.

As Kurt Nimmo explains (below), no less a figure than Gen. Wesley Clark claims that the pubic supports NSA’s surveillance of every aspect of our lives, including our email, our phone calls, our financial transactions and (I have no doubt) as well as our medical records. Indeed, physicians are even being required to ask their patients if they own any firearms, which is part and parcel of the ongoing efforts of the DHS to identify those who might be able to resist the imposition by force of a military-police state, which is coming as surely as the Sun rises in the East. But Gen. Clark’s claims are contradicted by a brand new survey conducted by Newsmax (below), which was released on 26 June 2013, which showed that Clark is completely wrong.

By 65% to 34%, the public regards Snowden as a hero.

By 78% to 21%, they oppose NSA spying to thwart terrorism.

By 92% to 7%, they do not trust Obama to supervise such spying.

And by 79% to 20%, they support privacy over security.

There is no longer any excuse for the public to be taken in by the propaganda and disinformation we are being spoon-fed by our own government and the mainstream media. There is more truth on Russia Today than in The New York Times, alas, even about major events such as the Boston bombing. We know the perps were wearing Craft International uniforms; that one of them had on a black back-pack with a white square on it; that one of the backpacks that exploded was black with a white square on it; that the same perps were photographed running a way without the black backpack with the white square. On Russia Today, “The Truthseeker: Boston Bombing – What you aren’t told” offers more truth than the US media combined:

They are squeezing this event for all its worth: blaming two brothers, shutting down a major city, filling it will light tanks and military forces in violation of Posse Comitatus, claiming that the younger brother had shot a security guard, making a case for their radicalization in Russia–thereby drawing upon a subconscious comparison with Lee Oswald, who had also visited Russia and was alleged to have shot a Dallas police officer–and now making the case that their “radicalization” took place via the Internet, which is going to be used as the justification for a crack-down with a new Cyber Security bill, which may make web sites like Veterans Todayand assassinationresearch.com figments of a distant past.

Indeed, it appears that the US has been launching cyber attacks on Iran, even though our own intel agencies concluded in 2007 that Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapons program, a finding it reaffirmed in 2011. Nevertheless, in another instance of the violation of the sovereignty of another nation in apparent violation of international law, the UN Charter and even the US Constitution, Gen. James Cartwright, former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is under investigation for allegedly having leaked information about this program, which made its way into the public domain:

According to the Times, Obama ordered the cyberattacks sped up, and in 2010 an attack using a computer virus called Stuxnet temporarily disabled 1,000 centrifuges that the Iranians were using to enrich uranium.

Congressional leaders demanded a criminal probe into who leaked the information, and Obama said he had zero tolerance for such leaks. Republicans said senior administration officials had leaked the details to bolster the president’s national security credentials during the 2012 campaign.

The Times said Cartwright was one of the crucial players who had to break the news to Obama and Vice President Joe Biden that Stuxnet at one point had escaped onto the Internet.

Nothing surprises me anymore. When the Senate can vote 99-0 to support Israel if it should decide to attack Iran in violation of the US Constitution, when our own intel agencies concur that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program and where the estimate of casualties includes 1,000,000 dead Iranians outright and another 35,000,000 premature deaths as the clouds of contamination sweep across Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, I have to admit that I no longer have any faith in the United States and its leaders. This nation has lost its way and our leadership has demonstrated that it lacks the integrity and dedication to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

by Kurt Nimmo

On Thursday, CNN’s Erin Burnett continued the establishment’s propaganda onslaught against the “leaker” Edward Snowden. After fatuously mischaracterizing Snowden as a “hacker,” Brown introduced former General Wesley Clark and Peter Brookes of the Heritage Foundation, the lobbying outfit that takes money from the neocon Scaife Foundations run by the CIA operative and Operation Mockingbird asset Richard Mellon Scaife.

Clark, a notorious war criminal who used cluster bombs and depleted uranium on civilians during his rein as the Supreme Commander of NATO forces, said the American people love the idea of the government illegally and unconstitutionally spying on them. Clark told Burnett the “American people are solidly behind the prism program and all that’s going on,” never mind numerous polls indicating the American people are steadfastly opposed to the government’s surveillance programs.

Brookes underscored the establishment’s claim that Snowden is a spy guilty of espionage despite the fact he is not accused of working for a foreign government. “He’s a 30-year-old spy. He’s been charged with espionage,” Brookes insisted.

Clark and Brookes are part of the establishment media echo chamber declaring Edward Snowden is a traitor for revealing the unconstitutional behavior of government and its Stasi state apparatus. From The New Yorker to MSNBC and Politico and beyond, the corporate media is focusing on Snowden – his idiosyncrasies, his girlfriend, even the fact he did not finish high school – while ignoring the serial criminality of the NSA, the Obama administration and Congress.

“Only because of Snowden do we know that our government is storing records of our phone data that can be mined for God only knows how long,” writes Kirsten Powers for The Daily Beast.

In fact, we have known for a long time about the government – more specifically, the national security state – spying on the American people, commencing soon after its inception in 1947 and mushrooming under quaintly named programs such as Project SHAMROCK and sister program Project MINARET. Enough evidence was revealed by the Senate’s Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities back in 1976 to implicate the government in this sort of elicit behavior, but thanks to the establishment media and the public miseducation system millions of Americans are blissfully unaware of the crimes of the national security state.

A Newsmax poll published 26 June 2013 contradicts the claims made by Gen. Wesley Clark

As a side note, the above linked Senate report is flagged as a “badware” website by Google. “Many kinds of badware aren’t visible or obvious, and they can install silently as soon as you visit an infected page. Google’s detection systems are VERY accurate. We suggest you don’t visit the site again until the owner resolves the problem!”

In other words, Google thinks it is very accurate at steering folks away from the truth, in this instance documentary evidence that the government has long spied on the American people.

Google, as a trusted appendage of the national security state, has a vested interest in diverting the unsuspecting away from the truth the same as CNN, the consistently featherbrained Erin Burnett and government apologists Wesley Clark and Peter Brookes.

Stephen Lendman was born in 1934 in Boston, MA. In 1956, he received a BA from Harvard University. Two years of US Army service followed, then an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1960. After working seven years as a marketing research analyst, he joined the Lendman Group family business in 1967. He remained there until retiring at year end 1999. Writing on major world and national issues began in summer 2005. In early 2007, radio hosting followed. Lendman now hosts the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network three times weekly. Distinguished guests are featured. Listen live or archived. Major world and national issues are discussed. Lendman is a 2008 Project Censored winner and 2011 Mexican Journalists Club international journalism award recipient.

About Stephen

Stephen Lendman was born in 1934 in Boston, MA. In 1956, he received a BA from Harvard University. Two years of US Army service followed, then an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1960. After working seven years as a marketing research analyst, he joined the Lendman Group family business in 1967.